Immigration and the Realignment of Black Partisan Identification and Political Ideology

• In Event: Racial and Ethnic Minorities Section Roundtables Session
  In Refereed Roundtable (90 minute): Table Four: Racialized Politics and Activism within the United States and Latin America

Abstract

In 1960, Black immigrants, most of whom were of Caribbean origin, numbered just under 120,000 and accounted for less than 1% of the Black population in the United States. Today, roughly 10% of the Black population in the United States are immigrants, and 1-in-5 are either foreign born or the children of foreign born individuals. This demographic change within Black America has led to numerous studies on metrics such as education, employment, earnings, housing, segregation, and marriage. To date, an understudied aspect of Black immigrant life has been their political beliefs and voting behaviors. Past scholarship has noted that Black support for the Democratic party and for liberal policies is overwhelming, at times nearing on unanimity. Though decades of electoral results have given scholars little reason to doubt this accepted wisdom of American politics, the upending of American politics following the emergence of Donald Trump has given us reason to doubt this accepted wisdom. In this study, I use data from the Collaborative Multiracial Post-Election Survey to examine whether Black immigrants are aligning themselves politically with native-born Black people, or whether they are diverging and thus ushering in a new era of (Black) American politics.

Author

• Beka Guluma, University of Maryland-College Park